Campus App

App Design and Mini-Business Plan
OVERVIEW

For a university project in a business administration class, my group and I developed a mini-business plan for a Campus-App. The idea was to develop a free app that summarises all relevant information, details about offers and events of the environmental campus Birkenfeld and presents them in an easily accessible way. Information that can be found on various platforms and social networks should be bundled in this app in order to make it easier for students and staff to get an overview and find information.
CONTEXT
  • AdobeXD

 

CONTEXT
  • University projects
  • Teamsize of 4

Developing Process

At the beginning we developed the business idea of the campus app. To do this, we defined our target group, conducted competitive research and then used AdobeXD to create a rough app design that would unite the many different areas. Finally, we concentrated on the business and marketing aspects and set up a cost calculation.

Competitor Analysis

First, we did a competitive analysis and researched similar offers. We also looked at how students and employees currently receive and publish their information and conducted a survey via the university mailing list to find out the interest and usage behavior of the target group. In summary, it turned out that many offers were very scattered among social media platforms and partly unknown and that there would be interest in such an app. 

Structure and Content

To showcase our Apps content, below are some sections that we wanted to include for students and staff to make information more accessible. 

Campus Information

First, a page will be provided that brings together all relevant information such as upcoming dates and events about the campus and the semester. There will be a campus map, as well as data about the beginning and end of the semester and the holidays within the semester. Furthermore, we will link the exam schedule and offer a download option so that students can start planning their exam period as early and easily as possible. We will also include general information about the opening hours of the Examination Office, Contacts and Foundation Offices.

Finding accommodation

In order to also make life around campus easier for students, we want to provide them with a way to help them find accommodation. For this purpose, we are integrating a channel called „Apartment Search“, which will be divided into the categories „Search“ and „Offer“. This way, people looking for a flat can look directly at the „Offer“ channel to see if someone is offering a flat that meets their expectations. In order to make the search even easier, we will provide certain filter options so that people can, for example, search specifically for single flats, shared flats, flats on campus or off campus, so that the offer can be presented more specifically for those searching. A further aid will be a link to the flat application forms of the Campus Company and the Schneiderbau Company.

Forum

In the forum, there are numerous super-topics that students can create themselves, in which they can exchange information as needed. We are aware that this forum, similar to the one in StudIP, will be rarely used. Our primary goal is to provide information about updates and improvements here in a developer thread.

Low-fidelity Wireframes

To bring our business idea to life and provide a concrete representation of our concept, we created low-fidelity wireframes for the proposed app. These wireframes served as a visual aid during our presentation, helping to illustrate how the app would function and what it would look like. By translating our ideas into these visual blueprints, we were able to communicate more effectively with our audience, bridging the gap between abstract concepts and concrete visualization.